Introductions

My data journey

Course goals

Syllabus

What is data?

Brainstorm: how might you use data if you were…

  • …a librarian?
  • …a police officer?
  • …a small shoe store owner?
  • …a general manager of a professional basketball franchise?

Policing

Source: technical.ly

Retail

Source: Humayun Khan/Shopify

Sports

Source: Kirk Goldsberry/Grantland

Data science

Source: The Onion

What you will learn in this course

This course covers the process of exploratory data analysis, which includes how to:

  • Find data
  • Load data
  • Clean data
  • Summarize data
  • Visualize data
  • Present data
  • Example question: what are the most popular female baby names in Texas, and how has this changed over time?

Finding data

Source: Social Security Administration

Loading and cleaning data

Summarizing data

Visualizing data

Presenting data

Tools of the trade

Assignment 1: Data journalism

Your task:

  • Find an example of data journalism from the past two years in a recognized publication
  • Write a response that 1) summarizes the article, 2) discusses its data sources, and 3) discusses its methods of analysis and visualization.
  • At least one paragraph, no longer than one page